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Monday, 15 September 2014

Jane Austen Festival 2014 Regency Promenade in Bath

On Saturday, Bath stepped back in time to its Georgian heyday. The streets were full of Jane Austen enthusiasts dressed up in Regency costume for the Jane Austen Festival Grand Regency Costumed Promenade.

We met in the beautiful Georgian Assembly Rooms, where we successfully set a new world record for the most people dressed up in Regency costume in one place: 550! And that could have been more as people were still arriving after the official count as a rugby match and a university open day also taking place on Saturday had caused more than a few Austenites to be delayed by traffic.

The promenade was led by a dashing group of redcoats and staff from the Jane Austen Centre. We paraded through much of the Georgian city including the very fashionable Circus, where the painter Thomas Gainsborough and the Earl of Chatham once lived, and down Milsom Street, where Regency ladies would have visited the circulating library and gone shopping.

The atmosphere was amazing. We were all joined together by our love of the Regency period and it was great to make new friends as we walked in the footsteps of Jane Austen, who lived in Bath for several years and set parts of two of her novels there – Northanger Abbey and Persuasion.

Meeting Mr Wickham

An extra special moment for me was meeting the charming Adrian Lukis alias Mr Wickham from the superlative 1995 BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice.

It was such a wonderful day, made even better by getting to meet you face to face after the best part of two years of reading your blog :) SO glad it happened, what a wonderful stroke of luck for me, and thanks to both you and Mirabelle for posting the wonderful pictures!